Narratives of consent and reproductive subjects: Tales of invisibility

Discussions about what is required for a valid and effective consent and how to support consent deliberations in practice proliferate across the medical ethics and legal literature. At the same time, reports abound of failures to secure consent across qualitative studies, activist research and birthing people’s testimonies.  

This book grew out of just such conversations between the three of us in the editorial team. We are scholars and activists who come from different disciplinary perspectives, but who share common interests in questions such as how consent is conceptualised and operationalised in practice? Who gets to make their own decisions and give or withhold consent? And who does not? Is it possible for consent to bear the weight of ensuring genuine personalisation of care? Could it be the case that in some situations consent is illusory, or even entirely absent in the context of reproductive healthcare?

The legal and policy literature emphasises the need for personalised care, to see birthing people as individuals (see for example Montgomery v Lanarkshire Health Board, Aintree University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust v James, Better Births). Care should wrap around them, rather than requiring reproductive subjects to comply with care and treatment provided. However, as we talked around the questions above, it became apparent how ostensibly very different experiences of consent (or the lack thereof) across reproductive care share a common theme – that of (in)visibility. For different reasons, and in different ways in different institutional spaces, pregnant and birthing people report being ignored, dismissed or otherwise rendered invisible in their care, with choices circumscribed and individuality obscured by social and institutional norms and expectations. Some report being utterly dehumanised, completely invisible in care that was supposed to be scaffolded around them. We are grateful that early in the project the Northern Network for Medical Humanities offered us a space to explore these commonalities and experiences further, bringing together discussants from multiple disciplines and professional backgrounds, including experts in law, ethics, linguistics, criminology and clinical care. These discussions on invisibility and consent bridged conceptual discussion with lived experience, alongside a recognition of contemporary challenges in healthcare provision from obstetric and psychiatric perspectives. The edited collection grew from these rich and productive conversations and the stories participants shared, providing a multidisciplinary exposé of just some of the ways in which people are invisibilised within reproductive healthcare. Fundamentally, the book is a rallying cry for change, for the lived experience of consent to match the rhetoric of choice propounded in the literature.

The book brings together experiences and analysis of invisibility across different facets of reproductive care, from fertility clinics to postnatal care, from surrogacy through to multilingual healthcare settings. It considers the way in which the legal system and policy-making framework invisibilises reproductive subjects, and explores the narratives of failed consent from some who have been historically marginalised within reproductive healthcare. It offers new insights and perspectives on how people are invisibilised, the gap between consent theory and practice, and the consequences thereof. The edited collection is particularly topical given the Independent maternity and neonatal investigation announced by the UK government in 2025, led by Baroness Valerie Amos. As we write, the call for public evidence is imminent. The book speaks to many of the investigation’s priorities, including how the healthcare system responds to risk in maternity care, identifying and tackling inequalities in healthcare, and understanding the lived experiences of care and of harm.

Over the coming weeks, we will be sharing blogs with reflections from contributing authors, to highlight just some of the rich analysis that the collection offers. [Discount code….] To celebrate publication of the edited collection we are delighted to share this 20% discount code (25AFLY3), click here to use it!